Archaic

by Regan Ure

  "I'm human, but I was born with certain powers."

  I frowned.

  "Are you like a superhero?" I asked, tilting my head to the side as I studied him, trying to imagine him dressed like a superhero with his underpants on the outside.

  He shook his head at me as a smile tugged at his lips.

  "No," he answered. "It's hard to explain."

  "Well, I'm not going anywhere," I replied dryly, crossing my arms.

  "It's a genetic mutation."

  I frowned as I tried to figure out what he was getting at.

  "A few hundred years ago, a meteor crashed into Earth. A few people from a nearby village went to investigate. Afterward they all came down with the same mysterious illness, which spread to the rest of the village. A few died."

  I listened intently. It was like stuff that only happened in movies.

  "Once the village recovered, they carried on as usual. But the children born in the village were different. They had powers, and the ability to heal."

  My eyes widened. It was like science fiction.

  "It's a long story," he added, clearly not wanting to go into all the details.

  I had so many questions flying through my mind. There were so many that I struggled to pick one to ask.

  "You can shoot energy out of your hands. What else can you do?" I asked as I crossed my arms again and looked at him expectantly.

  "You just get right to it, don't you?" He was clearly enjoying this. I shot him a dirty look and then he proceeded to tell me more.

  "We heal quicker than other humans. I can harness energy and exert it. It does tire us out, so we only use it when we have to."

  "Like in the clearing?"

  "Yes."

  "So how do you recharge?"

  "Rest. We can also recharge by draining energy from another life source."

  "Define life source," I asked, feeling a little apprehensive.

  "Any living creature."

  I was a living creature, which meant he could drain me. I didn't like that idea at all.

  "Who were the strangers in the clearing?" I asked. I saw anger flash in his eyes, and I could swear I saw his eyes darken as the anger flowed through him. His hands slowly fisted at his sides as he struggled to control his emotions. It took him a few moments to calm down.

  "We call them Hue. In the first generation of mutations, some children were born Archaic and some were born Hue."

  "How are the Hue different from the Archaic?" was my next question.

  "The Archaic mutation allows us to embrace our human nature as well as our powers, but the Hue are different. Their mutation has kept their human side limited, almost like a defect."

  "What does that mean?" I asked out loud.

  "They might look like they're human, but they don't feel emotions like humans or we do, they only feel a little of the negative emotions like anger and jealousy. They have no empathy and no sense of what is right or wrong. They're cold-blooded killers."

  That sent a shiver down my spine. I couldn't imagine only feeling those types of emotions. It would be like having a really bad day every day.

  "They look different," I observed.

  "Archaic have colors similar to humans but the Hue always appear as the exact same color. Blond, blue eyes and pale skin," he further explained.

  He continued to watch me intently with a serious face and waited for me to ask my next question.

  "Are your friends like you?" I asked.

  "All except for Felicity."

  I gave him a questioning look.

  "Most children born from an Archaic parent carry the mutation but there are rare occurrences when a child is born without the mutation, a human."

  "So are the other Archaics the same as you?"

  "Like with humans, not every Archaic or Hue is exactly the same. Some of us are more powerful than others. From what we've been able to understand, the villagers who'd gone to investigate the meteor crash seemed to have been more affected than the others. Maybe it's because they received a bigger dose of the radiation."

  He paused for a moment.

  "Their children were more powerful than the others. The Archaic and Hue that descended from them are called Descendants."

  I arched an eyebrow at him. I knew the answer before he even gave it.

  "Archaic Descendants have a white scar on the palm of their right hands," he said as he held out his open right hand for me to see. In the middle of his hand was a white jagged scar that looked like a lightning bolt. "I'm an Archaic Descendant."

  Great! Just what he needed, a bigger ego.

  "Do the Hue have the same?" I asked, lifting my eyes to his.

  "They have the same red scar in the palm of their left hand."

  I wasn't sure why I asked the next question but it just seemed to pop straight into my mind.

  "What do they do with the humans born to Hue?"

  He paused for a moment.

  "They kill them."

  I shouldn't have been surprised. He'd said they were cold-blooded killers but his words shocked me. It was something I couldn't comprehend.

  "Why did you pretend not to see me in the clearing?"

  "The argument in the clearing was explosive enough. If you'd been found, it probably would have escalated and you would have gotten hurt." He sounded like he actually cared. Then he opened his mouth again. "I have enough to worry about without having to worry about you as well." And with that he put me back into my place.

  "I don't need you to babysit me," I replied angrily at him. My temper sparked to life. "If you had been doing what you were supposed to and that was keeping your secret, we wouldn't be in the predicament, would we?"

  "If you hadn't been so nosy we wouldn't be in this mess either," he fired back.

  It didn't matter now. I knew. Nothing was going to change that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I sighed and rubbed my forehead. I was getting tired, so I sat back down on his bed and lay down. While staring at his white ceiling, I asked, "So what happens now?"

  "Like I already explained, you need to keep my secret. Your life and mine depend on it," he said with a serious tone.

  I lifted my head off the bed to meet his eyes.

  "I promise I won't say anything. Your secret is safe with me," I assured him. And even if I did want to tell someone, who would believe me anyway?

  My eyes met his as he studied me for a moment. Maybe he was trying to figure out if he could trust me. The problem was that he really didn't have a choice.

  "Okay," he said, dragging a hand through his hair.

  "You didn't need to go all caveman and drag me from the party to talk to me. You could have just come over to my house and asked to talk."

  Even as the words left my mouth I knew I would probably have been too scared to answer the door. I would just have continued to avoid him.

  "You were scared of me and the only way that you would've talked to me was if I cornered you," he stated rather smugly.

  "It doesn't matter, it leaves me with more explaining to do. My friends are going to be asking why I left the party with you," I told him as I lay back down on his bed and fixed my eyes on the ceiling above me.

  I stifled a yawn. I was ready to finish this conversation and go home to climb straight into my bed. Maybe it had something to do with the restless sleep I'd had the night before. While I continued to lie on his bed I studied the ceiling as I waited for his answer.

  "I don't know. Just make sure it's something believable," he replied vaguely.

  Is he for real? I lifted myself up by my elbows and sent a glare at him.

  "I'll just tell them you desperately needed my English notes, so you came all the way to a party to drag me home to fetch them," I said sarcastically. "Aren't you supposed to be good at lying? You've had to lie all your life to keep your secret, so surely coming up with something believable for tonight would be a piece of cake for you."

  "Fine," he said, sounding exasperated. "Tell them we h
ooked up."

  At this point I started laughing and I couldn't stop. I was laughing so hard, tears were running down my face. I felt the bed dip and his face hovered above mine.

  "What's so funny?" he asked with a deep frown that masked his strong features.

  "Me..." I took a deep breath to control my hysterical laughter. "You..." I took another deep breath. "Hooking up." The laughter erupted again.

  I continued to giggle as he hovered over me.

  When I finally managed to calm myself down, I saw something in his eyes change. I continued to stare at him as he touched a gentle finger to my cheek, causing my breath to catch in my chest. His eyes captivated mine. They were green and glinted, like emeralds.

  I couldn't move.

  He moved slightly closer until I felt his breath tickle my face. I licked my bottom lip as he trailed his finger down my neck and then finally stopped when his finger trailed to my hip. His hand held my hip firmly. The air locked in my lungs. His lips hovered over mine, and his eyes flickered to my lips and then back to my eyes. I let my eyes flutter softly shut almost on instinct, a reaction to the feelings that he was creating in me. He was going to kiss me, and so I waited.

  And I waited.

  But the kiss never came. With my eyes still firmly shut, I felt him move away from me and the bed dip as he got off.

  "Laugh all you want. We have chemistry," he assured me as I opened my eyes, shocked that he'd pulled away at the last minute, making a fool of me. He shrugged. "People will believe it," he said like he was stating a fact.

  "You're an asshole! You did that just to prove a point." I was so angry.

  He just stood in front of me with his arms crossed and smiled smugly. I couldn't be in the same room with him anymore without potentially harming him so I pushed myself off the bed and stormed out of his house.

  He didn't follow.

  He's a conceited douchebag. I stomped a couple of houses down the street until I recognized my house and let myself in the front door. I was seething.

  "You home already?" I heard Anne yell from her bedroom upstairs.

  "Yeah," I shouted back.

  With all the ups and downs of the evening, I was shattered. I quickly got dressed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth. I threw Jared's hoodie into the hamper. I would return it once it'd been washed. Just the thought of him again stirred my anger back to life.

  Sundays were the best. I usually spent the day around the house, doing as little as possible. Anne decided to do some gardening while I did my puzzle in the living room on the coffee table.

  I was surprised that by the time eleven o'clock came around, I still hadn't had a call from Stacy or Kennedy. Maybe they were still sleeping their hangovers off? I wasn't looking forward to lying to my friends, but I had to. Even though Jared was a douchebag, I still had to protect his secret.

  It was only when I sat down and thought about what exactly I was going to tell my friends that I started to question whether people would believe it. He'd proven that we had chemistry, but I doubt anyone would believe that he had chosen me over Felicity. That was just crazy. She was beautiful--the type of girl who had the looks to become a model. It was an ongoing rumor at school that they were together. Nobody would believe he dumped her to hook up with me. How did I expect my friends to believe something I wouldn't?

  The doorbell rang. I stood up and groaned as I stretched before I got up to see who it was, but when I peered through the little peephole, I couldn't believe my eyes. What was he doing here? He impatiently rang the doorbell again. I ground my teeth together in frustration as I opened the front door before he could ring it again. I pushed him back and stepped onto the front porch as I closed the front door behind me. I hoped Anne was still working in the back garden so she wouldn't have heard the doorbell.

  "What are you doing here?" I whispered angrily at him.

  "We need to get our stories straight about last night," he said as he crossed his arms while he matched my glare.

  "Ava? Who's at the door?" Anne yelled from within the house. Before I could reply, Anne opened the door and found Jared and I standing on the front porch.

  "Hi, Jared," she greeted. Of course she'd know who he was; he lived on the same street.

  "Hi, Mrs. Harris," Jared greeted, laying on the charm. Anne smiled at him. And just like that, she was putty in his hands. How did he do that? Maybe that was another power he had forgotten to mention.

  "It's lovely to see you," she said.

  "I just came over to get some notes from Ava. We're in English together. My mother's been meaning to make an appointment to see you," he replied.

  It was so weird watching him interact with my family member when I knew exactly what he was.

  "Tell her if it makes it easier I can always come over after hours," she offered.

  "I'll tell her," he assured her, giving her a charming smile.

  "It was nice to see you, Jared," Anne said back before turning to me. "I'm going to finish the gardening in the back yard."

  As Anne turned to go back inside the house, she raised her eyebrow and smiled at me. I would have some explaining to do later...

  "As much as I would like to stand outside your front porch and take in the scenery, it would be better for us to talk somewhere no one can hear us," Jared said.

  I didn't see any point in fighting him on that.

  "Follow me," I said with a wave of my hand, motioning him to follow me as I led him into my house. I turned back to make sure he was following me and I could see him looking around the house as he followed me up the stairs. Even dressed casually in a faded pair of jeans and a plain blue T-shirt, he still looked like he had stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine.

  Reluctantly I led him up into my bedroom. I really didn't want him in my house, never mind in my own room, but I didn't really have a choice. It was the only place I could guarantee someone wouldn't interrupt us. He walked in and I closed the door firmly behind him. I stood watching him while he walked over to my bed and sat down casually on the edge. There was no way I was going to sit next to him on the bed, so I leaned against my bedroom door and crossed my arms, looking at him expectantly.

  "To keep it believable we keep the story very close to what actually happened last night. We saw each other at the party and we couldn't keep our hands off each other," he exaggerated with a smirk on his face. The blush that crept into my cheeks made his smug smile bigger. He knew the effect he had on me. Correction: the effect he had on the opposite sex.

  "We decided to leave the party and come back to my place and continued our make-out session." Thoughts of the near kiss on his bed in his bedroom made me blush all over again. He saw my reaction and smiled again. It was a dead giveaway that last night had gotten to me. It might have been a game to him, but it had been real to me.

  Stupid! Stupid girl, I cursed internally.

  "Then later I walked you to your house," he finished as he stood up and walked over to me.

  "What about Felicity?"

  "What about her?" he asked back with a frown.

  "Aren't you guys..." I began to ask.

  The crease in his forehead deepened as he waited for me to explain what I was getting at.

  "...dating?" I finished.

  He shook his head.

  "No. There isn't anything going on between us."

  I hadn't expected that.

  "You thought there was something between Felicity and I?" he asked with a smirk.

  "I'm not the only one," I said, trying to defend the fact I wasn't the only one who had taken their closeness for something else.

  He walked to me and stopped in front of me. I just wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face. Instead I turned and opened my bedroom door and ushered him out of my room.

  As he was about to leave, he stopped and turned around. "I haven't told anyone in my group about you discovering our secret. At the moment I think it's best to keep it quiet."

  "Fine. It isn't like I was going to wan
der up to them at school and tell them that I know all about them," I said sarcastically, causing him to smile.

  For a few moments his eyes held mine.

  "See you at school," he said, and then he turned and left.

  He was barely out of the front door before Anne was in front of me, wanting details.

  "He is such a nice boy," she said, and I rolled my eyes.

  He was anything but nice. Hot, anger provoking, more than human, but not nice.

  "Did he really just come by to get notes?" she asked and I realized for the first time how perceptive she was.

  She gave me a knowing smile when I hesitated.

  "Yes," I said quickly, not wanting to give her the wrong impression. "He came over to get some of my English notes."

  "Really?"

  I narrowed my eyes at what she was suggesting. "There isn't anything. He and I are never going to happen." Hopefully that was the end of the conversation.

  "I saw the way he looked at you." She wasn't letting go.

  I gave up. Nothing I said was going to convince her otherwise. I gave her a quick kiss on her cheek before I watched her walk to the back yard to continue with her gardening. I still didn't know how anybody found putting their hands into dirt relaxing.

  My phone started to ring and I went into the living room to retrieve it from the coffee table.

  "Hi," I answered.

  "Hi," Kennedy greeted before getting straight to the point. "So what happened last night?" she asked. There was no beating around the bush.

  I held my breath for a moment, trying to organize my lie.

  "He kissed me," I lied. We'd nearly kissed, and then he'd pulled away. Anger flared in my veins when I remembered my reaction to him. Douchebag!

  "Wow!" she squealed, and I rolled my eyes. "That's great! Did he kiss well?" she asked.

  I wanted to tell her that he was a lousy kisser, but she wouldn't believe that. Looks weren't everything. It didn't matter how hot he was, he was still a douchebag.

  "Yeah."

  "Are you going to see him again?" she asked with bated breath.

  "I'm not sure," I replied, hating the fact that I'd been pushed into a situation where I had to lie.

  We talked for a few more minutes before we said our goodbyes and I promised I'd give her more details on Monday when we were back at school.